On April 20, 1988, James Phillip Barnes went to Patricia Patsy Miller’s condominium in Melbourne, took off all his clothes in order not to leave evidence, obtained entry by removing a screen and entered through a bedroom window. Once inside, he armed himself with a knife from the kitchen. After secretly watching Patricia go about her normal activities for a short period of time, he confronted her in the bathroom and forced her at knife-point to the bedroom where he sexually battered her. He then bound her hands behind her back using shoelaces he had removed from some tennis shoes, tied her feet together, and sexually battered her again.

James admitted that he went there with the intent to rape and kill Patricia. He said he tried unsuccessfully to strangle her to death with a belt he had removed from her terrycloth robe, so he bludgeoned the back of her head with a hammer he found in the bedroom. James admitted to collecting everything he touched in Patricia’s residence, including the clothing Patricia was wearing, and placed the articles in bag. He then set fire to the bed where Patricia’s body lay in order to eliminate forensic evidence left there. Before leaving in his car, James took all the items he had bagged, as well as the window screen he removed, and left to dispose of the items at another location.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m., firefighters responded to a fire alarm at the condo and found Patricia’s charred body face down in the bed in her master bedroom. Her hands were still bound behind her back with shoelaces. The medical examiner testified that the cause of Patricia’s death was blunt-force trauma from multiple blows to her head. The blows were consistent with being beaten with a hammer. Signs of attempted strangulation were also discovered during the autopsy. The medical examiner determined that Patricia’s body was set ablaze after she died from the blows to the head.

Despite James’ attempt to destroy forensic evidence by setting the bed ablaze, sperm was recovered from Patricia and preserved for DNA testing. Within one week of the murder, police considered James a suspect. He denied any involvement with the murder and agreed to give a sample of his blood for possible DNA comparison. In 1988 however, the available method of DNA testing was inadequate to produce a match and the case remained unsolved.

In 1997, the sperm recovered from Patricia’s body was resubmitted for DNA testing and produced a positive match to James. James was serving a life sentence for the 1997 first-degree strangulation of his wife, Linda Barnes. He was not charged, however, until he wrote several letters to an assistant state attorney in 2005 and confessed in a recorded interview. In the video, James admitted to the burglary, sexual batteries, murder and arson. He described Patricia’s physical appearance, the interior of the apartment and specific objects he saw in the apartment with accuracy. James was sentenced to death on December 13, 2007.